Suddenlink attacked again by vandals; service out for 10,000 in fourth vandalism this week

The latest vandalism strike on Suddenlink fiber optic cables -- the fourth in an increasingly familiar pattern this week that is exasperating public safety officials -- left 10,000 customers without service.

The incident, which took place on Old Arcata Road on Wednesday night around 11 p.m., mirrored similar recent vandalism near Trinidad and Ferndale: Someone broke into an underground vault overnight, cut lengths of fiber optic cable and discarded them at the scene.

"It's frustrating," Humboldt County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Kevin Miller said. "Both for Suddenlink and the sheriff's office -- and obviously for the customers."

Suddenlink Operations Manager Wendy Purnell confirmed Thursday that all the incidents appear to be related.

Arcata Police Officer Chris Ortega said the department received one citizen call informing them of the outage around 7 a.m. Thursday.

"It's been a pretty non-issue for us," he said, adding that the Arcata Police dispatch lines were operating.

In the meantime, residences that have lost telephone service may not be able to call emergency services.

"We're doing what we can to keep people safe in the interim when they can't call 911," Miller said. "The deputies are out there; they're patrolling."

Miller and Ortega said officers were on regular patrols in the affected areas.

"We encourage people to use a cell phone as a backup if they need to call 911, or just to hail one of our officers," Ortega said. "And relying on members of the community -- family and friends."

Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services program coordinator Dan Larkin said his office was more concerned about long term communication outages caused by landslides or other natural disasters

"We're concerned about it if it turns into a long term issue," he said. "For a communications outage like this they're usually fixed in short order, and we don't get involved."

Mad River Community Hospital spokeswoman Vicky Sleight said the hospital did not have Internet access Thursday.

"We're still having quite a bit of trouble," she said. "The phone system, quite thankfully, works."

Connecting to the Internet or sending emails to people outside of the hospital has been cut off, she said.

"We're kind of encapsulated with our own server anyway," she said. "Everything is moving as smoothly as far as our communication in the hospital."

William Tindle, an employee with FiberCo Inc., a general engineering contractor based out of Corona and subcontracted by Suddenlink, said the hundreds of underground vaults containing lines in the area aren't as hard to access as community members may think.

"These people obviously know what they are looking for," Tindle said, adding that he suspects the vandals are in search of copper, which can be exchanged at junk yards or metal recyclers for quick cash.

"What they are doing is dumb, though," Tindle said. "First of all, there isn't any copper in fiber optic lines. I think that's why they keep hitting different areas -- they are trying to find something that isn't there. Even if there was copper, the amount they are going to get scrapping it out at a junkyard isn't worth the punishment they are going to get when they are caught. Whoever is doing this is being very careless with their lives."

Tindle said he imagines Suddenlink officials are incredibly frustrated. It can take hours for a cable splicer to repair a cut fiber optic line, he said.

"The public really needs to be helping Suddenlink out right now," he said. "There shouldn't be anyone without a hard hat and arm badge near a vault. Anyone who looks like they are tampering with a vault should be reported to officials immediately."

Damage from vandalism is estimated to be around $30,000 following the latest incident, according to the sheriff's office.

Miller said he wasn't aware of special charges -- federal or state -- that would apply to damaging communications equipment.

"We're well into the category of felony vandalism now," he said.

Purnell said service was expected to be restored by Thursday evening.

As of 7:30 p.m., parts of Arcata and McKinleyville were still without service.

"For our part, we have every available resource working around the clock to restore services and assist the sheriff's department in its efforts to catch the responsible parties and put a stop to these senseless, thoughtless acts of vandalism," Purnell said in an email. "We thank the many members of the community who have offered their words of support during this trying time for all of us, and we trust that every law-abiding citizen will provide any potentially helpful information they might have to the sheriff's department."

The sheriff's office continues to investigate the incidents, Miller said. No suspects, motivations or leads were available by press deadline.

"Obviously, we're doing everything we can on our end," he said. "We're really hoping the public can help us out with this."

Suddenlink announced this week it is offering a $5,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for the crimes.

The sheriff's office asks anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity to call Detective Kirkpatrick of the Sheriff's Criminal Investigations Division at 268-3640 or the sheriff's office crime tip line at 268-2539.